Every night he would rewatch their encounter, and would pause to study her face. From the moment they met she continuously forced him to raise the bar, to up the ante at every turn. The way she was always challenging him, forcing him to be a better man. As if he hadn’t already saved all her videos, downloaded all her photos, looked into every acquaintance on social media she interacted with before they had even met. Diligently, her existence had been scrubbed from the internet, as if the trail would run cold in the absence of social media. Encounters had been taken down and her YouTube account shut down. A broken lease and disconnected phone indicated the level of competitiveness this game would reach. The obvious avenues of Sara’s location had been cleared out.
Sara wouldn’t be the first runner on his resume, and he found overcoming a challenge made the reward oh so more sweet. This was what he was good at, afterall, the chase.
She was doing this all for him! He opened the locket with his blood-caked fingers, and took strength from the image of his buddy. Wolves needed to hunt, after all, and deers needed to run. The camera, the locket… like Hansel and Greta leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, Sara wasn’t trying to lose him No, this was simply a game! This wasn’t Sara washing her hands of him, au contraire, this was her way of urging him along. A weaker man could have interpreted this as her trampling on his heart, quite literally, but for him the proverbial lightbulb went off. On the painful trek back to the cabin he came across their locket, dirty and discarded on the makeshift path. And then- Bam! Starbursts and circling cartoon birdies. Because no matter what she did to him, he loved her, and believed she would do him no harm. She advanced on him, silently, and he didn’t look back. As he spoke to the camera, after the realization that his wounds were painful but not fatal, Sara clawed quietly out of their grave, the discarded shovel providing purchase as she worked her way back onto her feet. The footage from that night told a story that was almost beautiful in its irony. Well that, and of course the camera which had documented their love. But without her the color she had brought back into his life was fading, and he feared that this time it would disappear for good. She stubbornly stayed at side and provided the spark that reignited his passion. He had been rock bottom when they had met no longer finding joy in his work and questioning his purpose, but she did not accept that. But more pertinently, there was an ache in his heart he felt when he came to and realized she was gone. It hurt when she left, what with the multiple stab wounds and the nasty concussion she had given him. It had been a long chase, but now with his deer finally within reach he can’t help but feel downright giddy. That rush of exhilaration a wolf feels right before its jaws lock onto its prey. It sends his heartbeat racing, and he can only think that this is what love feels like. Recognition flickers across her face, quickly fading into poorly disguised fear.
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